Sign in to your dashboard
There are no passwords anywhere on the dashboard. Every staff role, owner, admin, agent, and finance, signs in the same way: with Google, or with a link and a code emailed to them, not a password to create, remember, or reset.
Signing in
Section titled “Signing in”From /signin:
- Click Continue with Google, or enter your email address.
- If you used your email, you get one message with a sign-in link and a 6-digit code, use either. Clicking the link signs you in. If that’s easier (for example, the link opened in a new tab and you’d rather stay put), type the code instead.
You’re dropped onto your forum automatically. There’s no slug or forum picker to fill in: your email resolves to your one staff forum on its own.
Signing in with Google uses whichever email address Google has confirmed for
your account. That verified email is what identifies you here, same as the
emailed-link path, so sign in with Google once and with your email the next
time (or the other way around) and you land in the same place: your account
is the same either way. If the Google button isn’t showing on /signin, use
the email option above instead.
What each role sees
Section titled “What each role sees”Signing in gets everyone into the dashboard, but the dashboard itself still shows only what your role is allowed to touch:
| Section | Owner | Admin | Agent | Finance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Analytics | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Questions | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Forum members | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Categories & tags | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Images | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Team (invite, remove) | Yes | Yes¹ | No | No |
| Settings: Display (colors, logo, website URL) | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Settings: Advanced (custom scripts) | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Custom domain | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| API keys | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Billing (plan, usage limits) | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Profile (your own name, avatar) | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
¹ Admin can invite and remove admin and agent teammates, but only the owner can invite a Finance teammate, and the owner can’t be removed by anyone.
Finance is the narrowest role: Billing is the only section in its navigation and the only one it can open. Agents see Questions, Forum members, and Images alongside their own profile, but not Categories & tags, Analytics, or anything under Configure. For sections a role can’t reach, the tab shows a notice explaining who can. The sidebar groups these into Forum (Analytics, Questions, Forum members, Categories & tags, Images) and Configure (Team, Settings, Custom domain, API keys, Billing); a group only shows its header when your role can see at least one item inside it, so Finance’s sidebar is just Billing under Configure, with no other headers.
The sidebar
Section titled “The sidebar”Every page inside a forum carries the same dark sidebar down the left edge. Top to bottom: the product logo, your forum switcher, then the Forum and Configure navigation sections below that. Pinned to the bottom edge are your account menu and the theme toggle, so signing out or switching theme is always in the same place no matter which page you’re on.
The pages that aren’t inside a forum, the forum picker you see when you staff more than one, the create-a-forum page, and your account page, show a plain top bar instead (logo, theme toggle, account menu): there is no forum to switch or navigate within yet.
Above the routed page itself, a slim row shows your live portal’s address and a View portal button. That button, and every other link that opens a specific question or member profile on the portal (the Questions, Analytics, and Members pages all do this), signs you in automatically as your per-tenant staff account, no separate login even if you’ve never opened that portal in this browser.
If you’re already signed into a forum’s portal and open Dashboard from its account menu, you’re signed into the dashboard automatically too, no separate sign-in step either way.
The logo is a link home from anywhere in the dashboard: it takes you to your forum list, or straight into your forum if you only staff one.
Light, Dim, or Dark
Section titled “Light, Dim, or Dark”The dashboard has Light, Dim, and Dark modes, switched from the toggle icon next to your account menu, wherever that pair currently sits (the bottom of the sidebar on a forum’s own pages, the top right everywhere else), click it to cycle through the three. It’s saved in your browser, so each team member picks their own, and it doesn’t change how your portal looks to visitors, that’s a separate setting under Settings. The sidebar itself stays a fixed dark color regardless of which mode you pick, the same way the product’s blue accent does, only the rest of the dashboard’s pages follow your choice.
Where the real work happens
Section titled “Where the real work happens”The dashboard is where your team manages the forum: billing, team membership, analytics, portal configuration, and the Questions, Categories & tags, Members, and Image library screens. Reading and replying to your customers still happens on the portal itself: every question page has its own inline staff toolbar for acting on the thread you’re already looking at, so replying never means switching to the dashboard and back. See Moderate your portal for that side of the job.